Blessed are the Blended featuring Sandi Patty

Nov 14, 2017

In this spirited episode of Dinner Conversations, hosts Mark Lowry and Andrew Greer invite America’s favorite inspirational singer Sandi Patty to sit around the table as she talks about the treasures and trials of blending a family, and cultivating healthy relationships (and hope!) while in the thick of the mix.

TRANSCRIPT FROM THE SHOW

Mark: Hi, I’m Mark Lowry

Andrew: And I’m Andrew Greer

Mark: And you’re listening to Dinner Conversations

Andrew: Turning the light on one question at a time

Mark: Presented by Project Beautiful. Blessed are the blended. I am so excited about today’s show. One of my favorite singers — it’s Sandi Patty. I’ve known her since 1988. We’ve been friends ever since, and I’m thrilled she’s here today, and she’s going to be talking about blended families.

Andrew: That’s right. She has such a unique family situation — she and her husband, Don, and their blended family of eight children. There’s a quote by Brené Brown that we talked about. Brené says, “Those who have a strong sense of love and belonging have the courage to be imperfect.” And what Sandi does is she invites us into the story of her family as she shows how the stories of our lives that are imperfect are then a pathway for God to redeem us and then as we share that story for others to join in on the redemption, so I think it’s pretty exciting.

Mark: It was a great conversation, and there’s one seat left at the table — and it’s yours. Let’s join the conversation.

Mark: Years ago when you and I and Debby Boone did something—

Sandi: Hold on, let me grab that name you just dropped.

Mark: I remember it was at Anderson University, and I told you that night, I said, “I’m so thankful I was born in your lifetime to hear that voice.” I remember I was sitting with my friend Deena at the outdoor theatre in LA, that beautiful amphitheater thing.

Sandi: The Greek

Mark: You were at it. It was your concert. It was sold out. This is before I knew you, before I had my big break that you gave me.

Sandi: Well, we’ve got to talk about that.

Mark: Yeah, but let me just say that I remember thinking, I wish she knew my name. Isn’t that weird?

Sandi: Here we are.

Mark: And here we are.

Sandi: Having dinner.

Andrew: She knows it now.

Mark: I’m at Estes Park. I’m finally getting to sing at Estes Park.

Sandi: The year?

Mark: 1988, I know exactly. I can tell you what I was wearing. I see that Dallas Holm is supposed to introduce me in the morning, and I want you to because the two biggest stars in our world at that time were Amy Grant and Sandi Patty. There were no bigger stars. I mean superstars all right, and everybody else was down here. So she introduces me. She doesn’t know what I’m going to do. She introduces me, and I said, “Thank you, Amy, for that wonderful introduction.” I said, “Your first album My Father’s Eyes is still favorite.” And then I said, “Are y’all ready to rock ‘n’ roll?” I said, “Tough. I don’t do that.”

Sandi: And in that moment, I knew. I think I wet my pants that morning. I think I did. I’d never heard such smart comedy. It was just the most brilliant 10 minutes I’ve ever seen in my whole life.

Mark: So you are retiring.

Sandi: You know, I am.

Mark: You are. Farewell Tour’s going good, huh?

Sandi: It’s done. It’s farewell.

Mark: You’re not going to do like Cher and have an Adios Tour, an I’ll See You Later Tour, a We’ll Be Back in a Minute Tour?

Sandi: I’m not.

Mark: No, you’re done.

Sandi: I’m done. I mean, music has always been such a huge part of my life there’s no way I can not do music.

Mark: Of course, no.

Sandi: But being on the road, it just looks very different on a 62-year-old body than on a 30-year-old body.

Andrew: Sure. When we went to the Concert Tours, when my parents and I came to that, and you see this picture, to me, this is the story of redemption that’s happening throughout your family, but you see you, your husband Don. You see one of Don’s girls. You see your twins. You see Katie, your daughter-in-law. So all this literally up on stage singing together.

Mark: Because you blended a family.

Andrew: I mean, blended-ness right in front of us.

Sandi: And Anna, who runs the business, and then road manager son, we just employee them all.

Mark: A family corporation. A friend of mine yesterday, in fact, and they’re a little older than me — in their 60s probably — they recently married. Her husband passed away, he went through a divorce, but they married, and he said that if he had known. He said the hardest thing he’s ever been through in his life.

Sandi: You know, blending a family, there’s nothing easy about it. Nothing. So some of things that Don and I have been really fortunate in the last few years to be able to share with a lot of couples is not out of how we did it right. It’s how we messed up, and please, if you’re going to make a mistake, make a new one, but don’t make this one. But every blended family, no. 1 — you have to start here — is born out of loss. You just have to let that sink in. Every blended family is born out of loss, so whether there’s been a death of a spouse, parent, or whether there’s been a divorce, there’s a loss. That is just a reality. That doesn’t mean it’s set up to fail, but you do have to start there.

Andrew: It’s a recognition.

Sandi: Yes. You just have to own that. The second thing is you have to keep the foundational relationship strong. You’re the only ones in the whole mess that chose it.

Mark: Write that down.

Sandi: Nobody else did, right. You’re the only ones in this whole mess that chose it, so you’ve got to foster that, you’ve got to nurture that relationship, and we just tried to establish date night once a week. And I think you know in your second marriage you have to work harder than you did in your first. I don’t know, you just have to.

Andrew: Is that from a fear thing?

Sandi: No, it’s from, I think, an experience thing. Nothing magically happens when you say, “I do.” All the stars align and all the baggage is unpacked and understood — it’s just the beginning.

Mark: Let me ask you this. What kind of insecurities in your children does it breed when their parents stop loving each other? Does it, in some way, make them feel like it could happen to them, too? Is that part of it or not?

Sandi: That’s a very interesting question. It has made them look at marriage much more seriously knowing this could happen.

Andrew: Because they know you and they know their father and they know Don, and they’re going these are people we love, we trust, we see their relationship with God’s fostered, and yet here it was present.

Sandi: Yeah. And I think one of the things that we chose to do early on is to be as age appropriately honest with them, that there was not a question that they couldn’t ask that we wouldn’t answer somehow. And to be real honest, the questions have gotten deeper as they get older.

Andrew: And even as they get married?

Sandi: And as they get married, it’s like you know what, I understand differently than I did before. It’s hard work.

Mark: Now, let’s go with Andrew as he sits down to talk more about blended family life with Sandi’s daughter Jenn Crider, worship leader at Christ Church here in Nashville.

Andrew: How did coming from this blended family impact before you were married, now that you’re married, now that you’re a mom?

Jenn: Yes, oh my goodness. Wow, yes. I think I chose not to let people close for a very long time, and that was with my family, that was in friendships, that was in relationships. My husband was my first serious relationship, and we were 24 when we started dating, and I just became kind of self-reliant, which is not a bad thing, but it was from an unhealthy place. He gave me a lot of space to process how scared I was of marriage because of my lens. I was scared of being hurt, and I was scared of hurting. Both were equally strong in me, and I could see the capacity of both within me, which we all have and I think maybe it’s a good thing to come to terms with that, but it was paralyzing to me. And on the night we got engaged, he had set up this elaborate, beautiful, amazing engagement — the most perfect thing — and I realized finally what’s happening and I said, “I’m not ready to get engaged. I’m not ready to get engaged.” And he said, “Yes, you are. Yes, you are. Yes, you are.”

Andrew: You said that out loud?

Jenn: And I said, “I’m not ready. I’m not ready.” And he said, “Yes, you are. Yes, you are. Yes, you are.” I almost said, “No,” not because I was scared of him. I knew he’s amazing and I trust him completely and I do want to spend my life with him, so I wasn’t scared of him and I had peace about him. I was so terrified of marriage. My husband’s parents met and married in 12 days and are still together to this day, so we just had very different lenses that we walked into marriage with. So he’s like, “This is great. This is great. Why don’t we just get married now?” But I remember on my wedding day, I woke up and realized, OK, this is it, but I remember feeling this delight from the Lord because I felt for me and my story and my fears this redemption in some ways. And honestly, I know what I’m getting into. I have no rose-colored glasses but seeing that that actually can be a benefit instead of a crippling thing.

Andrew: I think what’s beautiful about that is what we realize is that we’re not whole. We’re not going to be whole on this side of life, so that’s a continual journey and that’s where you can begin to relate. No matter what your story is, no matter what your parents’ story is, no matter what my story is or someone else’s, that’s our relating point. If we’re surrendered, I think, to God through this life, then it’s a continual healing process that will never end.

Sandi: I love this song so much.

Mark: I do too.

[Sandi Patty singing “’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus” with Andrew Greer and Mark Lowry]

Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His word.
Just to rest upon His promise,
Just to know, thus saith the Lord.

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Andrew: Y’all created a name. Anna was telling me about it the other day.

Sandi: Because on vacation, Don would go, “Hey, Peslis family, let’s go.” And then, finally, the Helvering kids go, “I’m sorry. We are not Peslises.” But it sparked a conversation that, you know what, that’s true, so we need to address that. At first we thought, well, what if just for fun, we combined our names, so we took “Hel” from Helvering, “p” from Patty, and “lis” from Peslis, but that was Helplis and that just felt a little bit too real. It just felt too soon. So then we thought, OK, let’s just put all the letters of all the last names in a paper bag and we drew them out one at a time, and whatever order they came out in that would be our fictitious name, which came out Geniselapivy.

Mark: Geniselapivy

Sandi: Very well done. But I think what it has said is that we all have a place and we all matter, and some of those realizations we came to in a hard way because the kids would say, “You know what? That’s not my name.” Well, you know what, that’s true.

Andrew: Does it ever feel like here’s this hump and we’re never going to get over it because no one’s ever going to have the same last name, no one’s ever going to be all biologically related? Did you and Don ever feel defeated by that possibility or fact?

Sandi: Yeah. You hope that you can create a safe enough space that conversations can happen that will lead you to new things. You hope. That’s the best you can do. I say hope, and I mean prayer and discernment and thoughtfulness, all that.

Andrew: But you’re not going to control it, right?

Sandi: You’re not going to control that, and I’ll tell you something: This happened probably four or five years ago, and so Don and I’ve been married now 22 years. Twenty-two. We’re suddenly those people now that people come to. When did that happen?

Mark: For advice?

Sandi: Yeah

Mark: Well, why not?

Sandi: We can tell you what we did wrong, don’t do that. And this happened on one of the cruises I was hosting, and it happened to be around Don’s birthday. All the waiters came over and celebrated the crazy birthday and all of our family was around, and I realized I was hesitating to celebrate him in front of my kids because I never ever wanted them to think that I’d forgotten what it cost them. But then I realized, you know what, I’m also a wife, and if I don’t celebrate him, someone’s gonna, so I need to figure out how to celebrate him in front of the kids. So I set out on a mission, and it took me a year to accomplish, but I wanted to have a one-on-one conversation with each of my kids where there was no time constraint — it could go as short or as long as it needed to go — and say to them, “I don’t ever want you to think for one minute that I’ve forgotten what it has cost you, but I love your dad. He is my best friend, and I want and need to celebrate us.” And I’ve always said, “If you need to pick up this conversation at any time, then let’s do that.” But that has freed me to be able to celebrate my husband because that is important to do.

Mark: And you do it well. What do you call him, Reverend Don?

Sandi: Yeah, Rev. Mister Don.

Andrew: That’s in turn freed them up, don’t you think? Even though they may not have thought that at first.

Sandi: You know, the comments from each of them, one of them said, “Well, of course, we know that.” One of them said, “Mom, if you don’t move on, how are we supposed to?” So it was a very freeing—

Andrew: And how are they, then, to celebrate you if you can’t celebrate your love?

Sandi: Right, right. And I think that’s one of the foundations we tried to establish in our blended family, is even if it’s crazy, lets’ talk about it. But I think now we can converse, and the kids especially are really close.

Mark: Are they? That’s great.

Sandi: They really are.

Andrew: It’s pretty amazing to seem them together.

Sandi: They refer to us as stepparents, but they refer to each other as siblings. But they’ll say to us now, “our parents,” and that’s been a new thing.

Andrew: When you think about all those different personalities under one roof, and then on top of that, you have this personality that would like a little space to feel her feelings and maybe someone to hear those feelings when you need it, was it ever hard, especially with your biological siblings. Did some of them seem a little bit more go with the flow? Were you like, what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just run into this full force?

Jenn: Yes, absolutely. Have you read all my diaries? My mom told me a story later. I started doing some work and going to counseling. When I first moved to Nashville almost nine, 10 years ago, I had the incredible privilege of doing some very intense counseling with Al Andrews actually. In the midst of that work, I was processing some things with mom, and I remember having a conversation with her which was so healing for our relationship, that just said, “I need to have a conversation—“ Because I can feel all my feels, I can also feel all your feels, so sometimes I feel like I can’t say that because then that’s going to be taken that way. So I remember calling her on the phone after a counseling session and said, “I just need to have a conversation as a 4-year-old girl who’s really sad about things that happened,” and she just let me talk. She heard me and let me be seen, and it was so powerful in so many ways. I was just 4 when they got divorced, and my mom and dad sat us down and told us that they were getting divorced and tried to explain it however you can to a 4-year-old, and she said I just cried and cried and cried and cried. And she said at some point that day, I just stopped, and she didn’t see me cry for years because I think, as a 4-year-old, I realized that pain is so great to open yourself up, and I think once I reopened some of those things that were very painful at first, that then allowed some work to begin. But that was my journey, and my siblings had very different ones. Some of them were more able to go with the flow, and their work looks a little bit different. Sometimes it was them having permission to stop and say, “Oh wait, this did affect me,” and have that conversation and for us to all see that it did affect us, just as every person’s story affects them no matter what they walked through.

Andrew: Mark sits down with Al Andrews, founder and executive director of Porter’s Call, a counseling and support center for recording artists here in Nashville, Tennessee.

Mark: Have you worked with blended families?

Al: I have.

Mark: What is the biggest hurdle they have to face when you blend a family?

Al: Well, it’s really interesting because let’s say there’s six people in a blended family, six kids — three kids in this one, three kids in this one. When they come together, everybody’s been through a trauma, but if I met with each of those kids individually, I would hear a different story because everybody experiences a different story. My sister and I grew up in the same family, and we have a bit of a different story the way we experienced our family. The way I would work with people is just not assume, well, if you’re in a blended family, this, this, and this happens and, therefore, that’s what you’re dealing with. But what I’d rather do is go, no, each person, including the parents, lived a different story.

Mark: And they see that story through their own grid.

Al: Through their own grid, which is influenced by the things in their own life. One of the big things we want to do with everybody that comes in is almost treat them like a novel that has a beginning, a middle, and an end and a number of chapters because I feel like people need to know their story or their story will live them.

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Sandi Patty and Her Family

Mark: So you have eight total?

Sandi: Eight total. So when we got married, I had four: Anna, John, Jenn, and Erin. Don had three: Donnie, Aly, and Mollie. And then we adopted our youngest one Sam, so we own him jointly.

Mark: So do you like all of your kids?

Sandi: I am so for them, and I want them to know that.

Mark: And I know that might be an odd question, but, you know, you can love a kid and not always like them.

Sandi: Right. There are kids who maybe are taking the long way home and there are kids that have taken a little bit shorter route, and so the ones who are taking the long way home, it’s hard to know how to support them sometimes in decisions that are hard. It’s just a journey to sort of let them feel—

Mark: Is it you want to fix it?

Sandi: I just want them to know just do this and you’re going to be fine, but can I tell you this? And I actually have not shared this with anyone else but my kids, so I haven’t got it all figured out yet in my head. I’ve been very convicted as a mom in some of the choices that I make, particularly around food, and yet I want to say to some of my kids who are taking the long way home, “All you need to do is…” Because that looks easy to me, but that’s not my struggle. Just in the last two weeks, God has just kind of said to me, “Look, it’s this simple. You put less calories in your body than you burn, you’re going to lose weight. That math is not going to change. It’s one of my universal principles.” And I have for 62 years wanted to do different math, and so in fasting for my children, my fast is not away from something but it’s toward something, and that is six things of protein, five starches because I can’t tell my other kids that I know it’s hard but it’s worth it if I have not surrendered this in my life. It’s a new place. It’s so brand new like I have blisters from it, you know. It’s so brand new.

Mark: We never heard any sermons on gluttony. I didn’t.

Sandi: No, no, no.

Mark: And our preachers were all fat.

Sandi: Right? I know.

Mark: They’re all going to give the Lord a challenge in the rapture because they’re so heavy. No, seriously, but I did not know until I went to college gluttony was a sin.

Sandi: Yes, yes.

Andrew: Well, how we worship with our bodies, right?

Mark: That’s all we did was eat and go to church.

Sandi: Thank you

Mark: Dinners on the ground.

Andrew: You know what’s cool? I want to say this. How cool that you are coming to that realization and then applying that to your relationships with your kids because then, guess what, for those taking the long way home, well, hey, mom’s right here shoulder to shoulder with us.

Sandi: Yes

Andrew: I think as kids, as adult children with our parents, as they are still learning things about themselves and then presenting those to us willingly as well, man, that is such a convicting thing for me because it’s like, OK, so mom and dad and I get to commune together. They’re not controlling. They don’t hold all the answers. We’re all looking up.

Sandi: Right. You know, my dad, who’s 84, just said to me the other day, he said, “I wish I had known really in a sense what a weak man I was growing up.” He said, “Because knowing that at 84 has made me a stronger man.” He’s 84, and it’s what you just said, he’s still growing and still learning.

Andrew: And alive.

Sandi: Yes

Mark: I’m sure there were struggling times when you were struggling, and you can’t let the kids know you’re struggling. How do you parent them when you are also struggling?

Don: Well, actually, my wife and I decided that we were going to let them know when we were struggling.

Mark: Oh, really?

Don: And age appropriately, we might let them know what we were struggling with because they know you’re struggling.

Mark: And they need to know you’re human.

Don: They know that you’re sad. They know you’re upset. I remember a time when we told our kid — he was probably 8 — I said, “Mommy and I are having an argument like you and your brother have, and it’s going to take a while to get through, but we’re going to be OK, but that’s why things are a little tense.” And he went, “OK.” But it kind of put words to what he was feeling.

Mark: Wow, that’s cool.

Don: Again, as they got older, we might say, “This is what we’re struggling with.” And they might go, “Oh, OK.” Because I want to model for them that it’s OK for them to struggle because if you don’t—

Mark: How are they going to know how to handle when they are?

Don: Exactly. And one of the things that I think that I struggle with as a parent is that I believe that maybe they can not have to struggle as much. It’s like I want a shortcut. I want them to be fixed, but—

Mark: There are not shortcuts.

Don: There really aren’t. I really wish there were, Mark. I really wish there were, but there’s not.

Mark: But it’s not that long, 80 years you think compared to eternity. This is just boot camp. That’s all that this is.

Don: Isn’t that true? And yet it’s a boot camp that’s difficult sometimes. We invite our sons into it, and I feel like that’s been helpful to us because when they come up against it, when it hits them in the face, they’re not surprised like, “Oh my gosh, this happens?” Yeah, people betray you. Things hurt. Bad things happen, and it stings. People get mad at one another, and even if they love each other.

Andrew: So, going back to you having conversations with your children through all the years and you and Don saying, “At this table, we talk here. We ask questions,” that’s a foundation, a helpful one, and could be and should be for any family, right?

Sandi: Yes, yes

Andrew: Because there are families that don’t talk that have never had divorce or remarriage.

Sandi: Right, and you don’t know how to start the conversation. You don’t start the conversation with, “So I know you made a really bad, life-altering choice last week. Should we talk about it?” You can’t start there. What you do is you start when they’re little. So when the kids were little, we’d have dinner and we’d go around the table and say, “Tell me your high/low for the day. What was good about the day? What was hard about the day?” And so, sometimes it was, “Well, recess was extra long. That was the high. And we had green beans for lunch. That was the low.” But what you’re setting, you’re setting the table for conversation, so that when the high/lows get harder, you’ve already established the conversation.

Mark: Yeah, you can’t start that in their teens.

Sandi: No, you can’t, and listen to this: My mother, she knew she was loved, but she wasn’t told the words a whole lot by her parents. Her biggest fear was when she had children, she was not going to be able to say, “I love you,” so when we were younger — this makes me cry — when we were little, she told me this just a number of years ago, she would go in our rooms when we were asleep and she would practice saying our name, “I love you.” She would practice that so when the time came that we could hear it, she had practiced it. Now, that is just an amazing life lesson for me, that even if it’s hard for us, let’s practice it. Nobody gets it right.

Andrew: Yes. Yes, and to know that she wasn’t set up for that.

Sandi: She wasn’t set up for that.

Andrew: But yet, she chose.

Sandi: Which is amazing because people who know my mother, she says, “I love you,” to everyone.

Andrew: She’s well rehearsed now.

Sandi: But to hear that context was so sweet that what you don’t know, learn it. Learn it.

Mark: Well, you know, my dad, same thing. His parents never hugged him. He got on a train leaving to college. He sees his best friend and his father embrace, and he decided from that moment on he would hug his parents every time he saw them.

Andrew: He decided.

Mark: He decided. My grandparents were like Ma and Pa Kettle. Do you remember Ma and Pa Kettle? She was a big, tall, German, busty woman, and he was a little shrimp of a man. Well, that was my grandparents, and my dad would hug them and say, “I love you, mama,” and she’d stand there, you know.

Andrew: That takes me back to when you were saying that now people are coming to you and Don for advice, but what a gift, right, because through your all’s decisions, choices, would you say that’s a result of that? What goes through your mind when you think, Wow, we are now able to help someone else?

Sandi: Well, I think I’m so glad God makes all things new. Something new like Geniselapivy, which is the silliest, but out of all that, made something new. I do feel like Don and I were willing to do the work, and we were willing to put ourselves under some counsel and some leadership for a while, and I think those pieces are really important, too. But now, we get an opportunity to be that for other people, and them knowing our story because, you know, you can Google it — it’s just there forever — but I think it does allow people to be freer with what they tell us because they can’t shock us. It’s like, OK, what else? What else? And so, that’s why we have to tell our stories to each other. Out of brokenness, I think God can do just some miraculous things.

Andrew: “Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we’re all in this together. The irony is that we attempt to disown our difficult stories to appear whole or more acceptable, but our wholeness — even our wholeheartedness — actually depends on the integration of all of our experiences, including the falls.” It feels like you guys are pointing us in a direction of hope, one that exposes brokenness but also it then therefore exposes grace. Have you felt that kind of spiritual impact? It could be just personally, like you and your relationship with God, or even as you communicate to people from a spiritual platform, like talking about spiritual things.

Sandi: At first, it was hard, I think, to share the brokenness, but when I began to see, like you said, people coming up and going, “You know, that happened to me,” or, “I was abused, too, when I was younger,” and whispering it. And it’s like all of a sudden it lets you be more brave, so the first thing I want to be is maybe help people put words to some brokenness in their own life. It’s hard to speak out of the rawness that you’re going through, unless you’re, of course, Mark Lowry, because there’s a difference between being emotional and then just having feelings about what has happened. It’s hard to speak out of a super raw emotional place. But as I began to be encouraged to talk about it, it just was amazing the freedom that came in me because once you speak it out, it no longer has hold on you, right?

Mark: The cloud lifts.

Sandi: Yes, and it offers an invitation to others to do the same, to be brave and to take that first step. It’s like, God, only You could do something like this, only You. We just bring all of our stuff, we just bring it and allow Him to reframe it and reshape it and remold it, and it’s really amazing.

[Sandi Patty and Family singing “It Is Well”]

It is well (It is well)
With my soul (With my soul).
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Amen, amen, amen.

Andrew: Thanks so much to our wonderful friend Sandi Patty for joining in on the table talk today. Thanks so much to Mike Atkins and Anna Trent of Atkins Management. We want to thank our friends the Breen Family for opening their home to host this podcast, Quentin Philips for his expertise, Dana Claremont for all her assistance, and also thanks to Stacy Kennedy for her extra set of helping hands. Our show is recorded by Center Street Recording Studios in Nashville, Tennessee.

Mark: Our executive producer for Dinner Conversations is Celeste Winstead. Our show is co-produced by Andrew Greer and myself. Andrew is also our director. Our assistant director and editor is Chris Cameron. Tristan Swang is our director of photography. Britt Edwards is our sound engineer. And the theme song was played by Britt Edwards, Chris Cameron, Andrew Greer, and Ron Block. Thank you for listening to Dinner Conversations.

Andrew: Turning the light on one question at a time

Mark: Presented by Project Beautiful.

Andrew: Join us next time for more conversation around the table, and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss one single episode. While you’re at it, rate and review our show. It’s an easy way that you can help us continue the conversation. Dinner Conversations is a production of Center Street Media.

Season One title sponsor, Project Beautiful … a passionate community committed to saving lives from the terrors of human trafficking. Learn more about how you can partner with Mark, Andrew and Project Beautiful to help bring innocent lives home by visiting: